Tramp Stamps and Wine Spritzers

I might have mentioned it a time or two already, but my husband and I lend proof to the saying “Opposites Attract.” One of the things people find confusing about us is that I’m a democrat and he’s a republican. It’s not a huge difference except for the fact that he happens to be a Republican State Senator.

Which reminds me of another of my Foot In Mouth comments. We were attending a republican fundraiser and once again I was nervous, so once again I chose to relax with a couple of vodka tonics. (I used to try to blame these awkward comments on the alcohol but I quit drinking and so far it hasn’t helped.) We were standing in a crowd of people who were discussing how hard it is to find good people to run for office.

“I asked my neighbor if she’d run,” one woman said. “But she told me she’d slept with too many men to be able to be elected.”

Laughter followed.

“Well,” I said. “My husband will be the perfect candidate because I can assure you, he hasn’t slept with any men!”

Silence followed.

But I digress. I was focusing on our differences. My husband is very athletic – star of his hometown football team, award winning golfer, excellent tennis player. The list goes on and on. I, on the other hand, struggle to put one foot in front of the other.

As my dad said when I told him I was planning to take golf lessons, “Oh, honey, you know you’re not coordinated enough to play sports.”

In a recent discussion I discovered my husband and I both liked boating. Great! Waterskiing was the one sport I had managed to conquer. Maybe, I thought, we found something we could do together.

Unfortunately, boating to him, meant sailing. I mean who wants all that wrestling with ropes and sails and balancing against the wind stuff, when you can sit leisurely behind the wheel of a motor boat, right? We discussed it endlessly and finally decided to visit both marinas at the lake.

We started at the sailing club where the people were dressed in polo shirts and khaki shorts. After their early morning sail, they came into the clubhouse for a salad and a wine spritzer. Then we visited the ski club where beer bellies and bikinis abound.
The number of men with mullets were only slightly outnumbered by the women with tramp stamps.

Since I’m not willing to invest in a tattoo and my husband is not willing to invest in a boat, we’re still searching for our common thread.

According to Wikipedia (the perfect place for a definition of Tramp Stamp) : A lower back tattoo is a body decoration, sometimes intended to emphasize sexual attractiveness. Such tattoos have become popular since the late 1990s. They are sometimes derided as suggestive of promiscuity and often referred to as “tramp stamps”[1] and other slang terms.[2] The German term Arschgeweih can be translated as ‘ass antlers’. Such tattoos are primarily seen on women, although a small but increasing number of men have them as well.

I love this part too: A Barbie was released with a “lower back tattoo” in 2009. How’d I miss that?